Former President Donald Trump has praised Nigerian Government for banning Twitter.
In a statement, Trump, who is banned from the social networking site, released a statement implying that he wished he had done the same.
Donald wrote in his rather emotional tone:
“Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President. “More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech — all voices should be heard. In the meantime, competitors will emerge and take hold. Who are they to dictate good and evil if they themselves are evil? Perhaps I should have done it while I was President. But Zuckerberg kept calling me and coming to the White House for dinner telling me how great I was. 2024?”.
Twitter did not ban the president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari.
In actuality, they merely removed a tweet they felt violated their terms and conditions as it appeared to flame tensions between separatist groups in the Biafra region.
In response to his tweet’s deletion, Buhari disallowed the platform to be accessed in the West African country. Trump was removed from a variety of social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, over the deadly 6 January insurrection.
Why was Trump banned on Twitter?
In a blog post, Twitter defended their decision to remove Trump because he is “not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things.”
In response to Nigeria’s ban, the social networking site said the country was breaching human rights.
Twitter said:
We are deeply concerned about the blocking of Twitter in Nigeria. Access to the free and #OpenInternet is an essential human right,”
After the Twitter ban was announced on Friday, most Nigerians are using VPN to access the social media platform.
The “VPN app” was the second most searched trend on Saturday on Google in Nigeria. Virtual Private Networks can enable Twitter users to bypass the ban. However, the government warned that it would prosecute violators of the Twitter ban. The country’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) directed all TV and radio stations to “suspend the patronage of Twitter immediately”.
Meanwhile, some Nigerian broadcasters have expressed concerns over the ban on Twitter, arguing that it is part of the government’s attempt to crackdown against the media.